D.C. Journal.

With Republicans Now In The Driver's Seat, Hastert Sits Right Up Front

December 11, 1994|By Mitchell Locin.

WASHINGTON — The rising star in the Illinois congressional delegation is Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, the former Yorkville High School history and government teacher and wrestling coach tapped last week to be part of the new Republican leadership team.

If anyone from Illinois is destined to replace retiring House GOP Leader Robert Michel of Peoria in the House hierarchy, it is Hastert, 52, say many of his fellow Republicans.

He wisely aligned himself with Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and managed his winning campaign to become majority whip. DeLay rewarded Hastert by naming him chief deputy majority whip.

"I'm kind of in charge of the floor, lining up votes," said Hastert. In other words, he'll be the finger-on-the-pulse guy among the Republican rank-and-file for Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the incoming House speaker, and Rep. Richard Armey (R-Texas), the new majority leader.

More importantly for Illinois, Hastert is the representative for "Great Plains" states on the new House Republican Steering Committee. He'll be at the table with Gingrich, Armey, DeLay and the other leaders when they meet over strat- egy and policy, and it puts him in a position to be influential on issues important to the state. Just last week, he was helpful in securing desired committee assignments for the three freshman Republicans from Illinois, Jerry Weller of Morris, Michael Flanagan of Chicago and Ray LaHood of Peoria.

Though Hastert's personal style puts him closer to Michel than Gingrich on the affability scale, he's a wily fighter when it comes to partisan interests.

He spearheaded the drawing of an Illinois congressional redistricting map after the 1990 Census that favored the election of Republicans by pitting incumbent Democrats against each other and putting more Republican voters into formerly solid Democratic districts. A federal court adopted the map for the state. The result: Illinois' delegation has gone from 14 Democrats and 8 Republicans in 1990 to 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans in the next Congress.

The GOP leadership designated Hastert to run the House Republican

team in the battle over health care during the last two years, a role that he's discussed continuing under Gingrich.

Illinois matters: The state will have two seats on the 24-member House Republican Steering Committee, Gingrich's major advisory panel. In addition to Hastert, Weller was chosen as one of two representatives of Republican freshmen.

- After weeks of stunned silence from their election setback, Democrats are finally stirring. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, who's gone from being majority leader to minority leader, is talking to Rep. Richard Durbin of Springfield and two other members about being the party's "rapid response team" to react to day-to-day developments in Congress. As Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, said, "So far, the team hasn't produced any response, much less a tepid one."

- Big Jim Thompson is not doing great in the intelligence department lately. First, the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, which the former Illinois governor chaired, was abolished by President Clinton when its duties were consolidated into another presidential panel. Then, despite Thompson's heavy lobbying and his Illinois connection, Michel passed him over and chose two others for appointment to the new Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community.

Michel's appointees were Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), who worked 12 years in Army Intelligence and the CIA, and Robert Pursley, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, former assistant to three Defense secretaries and commander of U.S. forces in Japan. The commission's job will be to examine the role of American intelligence in the post-Cold War era and to restore credibility after the damage done by spy Aldrich Ames.

- Sharon Percy Rockefeller is back at the helm of Washington's public television station, WETA, returning as the president and chief executive officer 19 months after being seriously injured in a car accident. She tried to return to work two months after the crash but found that her strength and health had not returned, forcing her to step down. Now that she's fully recovered, Rockefeller, the daughter of former Illinois Sen. Charles Percy and wife of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), emerged as the choice to succeed herself during the proverbial nationwide search by the station's board.

- It cost more than $1,000 per farmer to keep open the U.S. Department of Agriculture's field office in Grayslake amid the ever-growing housing developments and strip malls in Lake County, so the location will be one of 1,274 nationally that will be closed or consolidated. Suburban and exburban sprawl in the greater Chicago area also will result in the closing of offices in Joliet in Will County and Morris in Grundy County.

Still, Illinois took a light hit, losing just seven of its 102 offices in the Agriculture Department's downsizing, while Georgia will lose 101 and Texas 98. The other Illinois locations to be shuttered are Downstate in Mt. Sterling, Metropolis, Golconda and Mt. Carmel.